Welcome to "Dust, Tears & Dice", a blog dedicated to the hobby of miniature wargaming.
If you fancy gaming periods off the beaten track then this is the place for you.
I am a regular member of The Wyvern Wargamers, formerly The Evesham Wargames Club drawing gamers from Worcester, Redditch, Kidderminster, Cheltenham and Stratford.
All players welcome.

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Chain of Command - Bush War Rhodesia - Play Test

Sunday night saw the first playtest of Chain of Command - Bush War Rhodesia, a future offering from the Two Fat Lardies, this is a departure from the balanced forces found in the WW2 variant, with forces designed to fight Counter-Insurgency (COIN) operations on the tabletop.

The
Rhodesian Bush War was a classic ‘asymmetric conflict’ where one side
wants essentially to 'get away' and the other wants to ‘engage’. The
rules have some great features to represent the need for the Security
Force player to keep losses to a minimum, whilst representing the hit and
run tactics of the communists.

The table is a lot more open than I am used to in the usual WW2 outings within Chain of Command, but with an 18" range representing sight through the hinterland you can be quite aggressive in your early moves, I was representing the security forces and needed to close down the communists quickly.

Jump off points have less relevance in the bush, but as the insurgents you need to keep your escape routes open, I pushed my two sections forward looking to pin the deployed communists against their jump off and dispersal points.

The ZANLA forces ambush my advancing section as it captures a communist jump off point wounding one of my men, a single wound can impact my force morale so I have to be careful how I deploy and approach possible enemy force locations.

Having saved a CoC dice the modern day fire power knocks chunks out of the ambushers, Double 6 on the command dice does not help, as a further round of fire pins the ZANLA forces. The insurgents fire is poor and comes with several modifers which makes it hard for the communists to inflict heavy casaulties.

Security forces push on receiving a number of slight wounds as the communists blaze away, forcing the section to go to groud, as the night draw to a close ZANLA slipped away, leaving the government forces with nothing but grassland and blood trails...

Bush War CoC has the same great feel as the the WW2 variant, the hit and run tactics have a good feel to them, as the security player you have to watch your casualty count, whilst as the insurgent you can the advantage of numbers, but the frustration of poor shots...I had some very lucky dice, but felt I could lose every time a stream of tracer flew my way..... I can see us getting quite a few more of these games in, over the next few months.....

Nice Work Stuart - like the terrain and your figures and the write up of the Skirmish- well done!I nearly started on a Rhodesian Project 28mm- Bush Wars- using Eureka Miniatures..very interesting Modern Conflict....I gave it some serious thought before opting to do my STARGRUNT II Project. Regards. KEV.